Introduction

First the obvious: it's the middle of April, and basketball isn't coming back for a while, folks. Besides everything else that's changed, we lost the chance to see how the chaotic regular season would play out in the tournament when the chaotic real world cut in. 

Even though things are mostly bad, they're not all bad. We are spending our stay-at-home with our newborn baby, and he gets almost every moment of our attention that doesn't go to working, cleaning, and cooking. This has included working through the massive library of books he has come into possession of through hand-me-downs and baby showers.

But which one is his favorite? How can we organize our sometimes monotonous existence? Is there anyway to replace the March Madness story lines we never got to see this Spring? Enter Jack's Book Bracket, a 64-book read-off to get to the bottom of things, where winners and losers are entirely up to a tiny baby. The best book won't always win-such are the perils of a single-elimination tournament. But Jack will get 126 stories out of it, and it's better for my sanity than watching every One Shining Moment I can find.

Next, the rules:
1.) No anthologies, long stories, or multi-parters. If it's longer than "The Lorax," it didn't make the cut.
2.) Books survive and advance based on Jack's interest. Like all basketball referees, I will make calls here and there to settle close games.
3.) He's ten weeks old, so two rules are enough.

I'm shooting for three to four match-ups a day, which should make this all a three-week exercise. But see Rule #3 above. . . Jack's schedule runs our lives, and it runs this tournament.